


Babysitting

by Icypearls



Series: i'm dating an alien [13]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: hopefully, just wait for the next it'll probably the fluff, no pearl in this one, this was meant to be fluff and something went wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 20:22:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9341717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icypearls/pseuds/Icypearls
Summary: Sheena watches Steven





	

It wasn’t that Sheena didn’t like Steven. Steven was cute, for a kid, and he was sweet. It was just that she didn’t have much experience with children. Maybe if he had been older, she would have felt more comfortable with him, but he couldn’t have been older than…ten? She wasn’t exactly certain how old he was. She was just glad he wasn’t rambunctious, because he had powers, apparently, and could have gotten them both into so much trouble with Pearl. Instead of running around, causing trouble, he was in the kitchen making himself lunch. He was a very independent kid.

“So uh, Steven,” Sheena said, walking into the kitchen. “Who normally watches you when they go places you can’t?”

Steven was attempting to perfectly fit everything he wanted on his sandwich onto the bread, with none hanging over. He looked up, eyebrows raised. “No one. I stay by myself. The last couple of years I’ve been going on missions with them, or they don’t all go.” 

“So…why am I watching you?” 

Again, Steven shrugged. “I don’t know.”

With a sigh, Sheena leaned against the counter. “How long have they been leaving you by yourself?”

Bringing his eyebrows together and putting a hand on his chin, Steven thought. “Since I was able to make my own food. So I guess when I was six or seven, and that was just when Dad couldn’t watch me.” Again, he went back to his sandwich. He held the mustard bottle in his hands, making a smiley face on the bread.

Sheena frowned, doing the math in her head. “So you weren’t left on you own that long before you started doing missions, then. Like maybe for a year.”

“No, more like…” Steven counted on his fingers, “five, I guess. I had tv and games and books and the lessons the Gems would give me.” He shrugged again. “It did get scary sometimes, but it’s okay. They did what they had to do.” He walked around the counter and sat in one of the chairs, looking down at his sandwich. “Missions are scary, too.” He glanced at Sheena before picking up his sandwich. 

“Five years? How old are you?”

“I turned fourteen in the summer.” Steven smiled. “It was fun, we had a party at the barn.”

Sheena sat in the chair next to him. She looked over, watching him eat his sandwich for just a second. “So missions are scary?”

“You’ve been around when corrupt gems attack. It’s kinda the same thing.” He sat the sandwich down, turning bodily in his seat to look at Sheena. His eyes lingered on her hair, which was slowly growing out the blue it had been back to her natural brown. “I don’t really get that scared while on a mission, unless I’m floating through space or something, but it’s after. Everything that happens is still in my mind. I think about it a lot.” He looked down, playing with his hands. “It’s like…I think about how I had to poof Bismuth, or how Jasper was poofed. I used to think I needed to measure up to my mom, but then I find out she shattered at least one gem, and I just…” he sniffed, wiping at his eyes. “I try to live up to what they expect, but I don’t even know what that’s supposed to be.”

Sheena didn’t know what to say. How could she comfort this little boy—well, teen aged boy—when she couldn’t even begin to fathom what he was feeling. She put her hand on his back, rubbing it gently. “Hey,” she cooed, scooting closer to him. “Steven, you don’t need to be just like your mom. You just have to be you. Forget what you think everyone expects of you, okay. I know that Pearl—“

At the mention of Pearl’s name, Steven jerked away. “No, you don’t know. It’s…Pearl thinks my mom was perfect, and if someone says something otherwise, she gets really mad. She…” Steven sniffed again, looking up at Sheena, more anger on his face than she had ever seen. He pulled up his shirt a little, revealing the gem in his belly button. “Sometimes I’m afraid this is the only part of me she cares about. And they’re all just like that. They just want me to do what mom would do, or to make mom proud, and I don’t even know if I care about her!” Steven’s was yelling now, his voice bouncing off the walls. “I never met her, I don’t know anything but what I’ve been told, and it’s like she was perfect. Even Dad only says good things.”

Sheena just sat there, letting him yell. Tears were streaming down his face, his nose was running, but she also knew that at that age, someone just listening was sometimes the best thing. He stood, shoving away from the counter. “The worst thing is…” here, he quieted, his shoulder slumping forward. “The worst thing is that I don’t think I really fit in here at all. This might be my room, and I really love them gems, but I really wish my mom were here, sometimes, instead of me, so everyone could just be happy.”

That was her cue. Sheena was close enough, so she reached out, enveloping Steven in a hug. He relaxed into it immediately, wrapping his arms around her, burring his face into her shoulder. She rubbed his back as his breathing regulated, and eventually he pulled away. He swallowed, not meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. Now, he looked up. “You’re just…really easy to talk to.”

She smiled at him. “You can talk to me anytime, Steven.” She ruffled his hair, her smile melting. “Have you talked with the others about how you feel?”

Steven shook his head. “How do I even start that?”

“Maybe I could help you?” Sheena wasn’t sure how to do that either, but she knew this kid in front of her really need the adults, or the adult figures, in his life to do a better job. “I can talk to Pearl, or we can wait for just a little bit, while you figure out exactly what to say.”

“Waiting sounds good, but you could maybe talk to Pearl a little, too?” Steven looked glumly at his sandwich before throwing it in the trash. 

Sheena nodded. “Okay, but we are having this talk. I’ll give you two weeks, tops. And I’ll talk to Pearl some, tell her to go easier on you.” 

Steven nodded, taking a deep breath. “Okay. Do…do you want to watch a movie?”

“Yeah,” Sheena said. She followed him up the stairs and sat in front of his bed while his pushed in an old vhs tape. By the time the warp pad activated, the movie was over, Steven was asleep, and Sheena had an important talk to have with three gems.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, hey guys! I hope you're all well! I'm really excited about being back after only two days lol. There isn't a good way for me to keep you guys informed when I'm going to be gone except for author notes like this, but if you want to check over at icypearls.tumblr.com i tend to post when i'm going away for a while and when I won't be posting stories there if you ever get concerned about it. Anyway, I'm really...unsure about this. Steven is hard for me to write in general, and I'm just...idk about this. Let me know what you think in the comments, and thank you so much to everyone who has commented on my stories so far and especially to those of you who have subscribed to me, personally. I run off of external validation so you literally keep me motivated.


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